by Noah Porter
“Stop whining, Mason,” the three said in unison.
“My sword is over there. If you don’t mind going a little out of our way I would be most appreciative.” Mason figured they might as well make the best of the other team’s slowness.
“Of course we will, we would hate for Romulus and Remus to be split up,” Lily grinned.
“My swords aren’t men!” Mason was almost offended, “Besides, Romulus killed Remus. My ladies would never do that to each other. This is Victoria and that over there is Elizabeth.”
“Do you name all of your weapons?” Lily retorted.
“Do you name all of the men that you sleep with?” Mason shot back, “And before you try to club me on the head again, you’ve already done that once, and I did feel the butt of your gun, so we are even.”
Lily screamed in irritation.
They heard some noises near the building, but were too focused on the current tasks at hand. Their planned seemed to have worked remarkably well. Since charging down the hill they had not lacked for targets, and the crowd did not seem to be thinning.
A few seconds later they got close to the katana. Dylan took one look at the sword, stuck in the ground. It looked like a bizarre parlor trick with the zombie sitting through the sword. “What the hell did you do, Mason?”
“I just did what Paige asked me to do. Double tap to the face.”
Paige gave an exasperated sigh, “I did not ask you to do that. I had no desire to see that, thank you so very much.”
A figure came barreling out of the bushes, crossbow at the ready.
“Andrew!” Paige, Dylan, and Lily shouted.
“Angelica!” Mason cheered.
“Oh, good grief,” Lily said behind him.
“Hey guys. Is everyone ok? We heard Lily scream so I took off.” Andrew was looking them over and didn’t see any serious injuries.
Dylan grinned, “Mason. She was screaming because of Mason.”
“Did he accidentally stab her?” Andrew had joined the group and was trying to figure out where she could be hurt.
“No, he opened his mouth. Isn’t that generally enough?” Paige said from beside him.
“Aren’t you guys comedians.” Mason moved to the middle of the group. The others closed in around him as he began to work his katana out of the zombie.
Dylan looked at Andrew as they held the zombies back, “Did you take off on your own?”
“Well, yeah, stupid I know, but, well...,” Andrew wasn’t sure what to say now that the impact of what he had done sunk in, “I couldn’t just leave you guys in here if it was going all wrong.”
Paige picked up on Dylan’s concern, “Are you sure no one else tried to follow you?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t even turn to look, I just moved on instinct.” Andrew looked ashamed, “I’m so sorry, guys.” He tucked Angelica under his arm, causing a gasp from Mason, “HEY GUYS! WE’RE OK! KEEP WORKING ON THE DOOR!”
“What’s wrong with the door?” Lily asked, letting her eyes dart in that direction. Even if she had been taller, she wouldn’t have been able to see what was happening.
“The bars weren’t closed, but the doors seem to be locked or something,” Andrew wasn’t sure how to break it to them after all their hard work.
Lily laughed, “Is that all? Get me to the door, I’ll fix that.”
Andrew shot another zombie closing in on Mason, who was still having trouble removing his katana. “It’s not your typical lock, Lily.”
“That’s never been a problem for me; I’m not your typical burglar.” The idea seemed to energize her. “I’m almost out of accessible ammo here, Mason. How’s it going?”
“Cogi qui potest nescit mori, kid.” Mason said giving the sword a few more swings. “Fine. Your persistence is noted, but this tantrum isn’t going to get you anywhere.” With that, his scimitar hacked at the areas around the sword. It slid free. “That should do it. To the door!” He pointed his now free katana at the building.
“Practical matters first. Andrew, how is the area on the other side of the bushes?” Dylan was always a couple of steps ahead.
“Not too bad when I charged in, but...” Andrew didn’t want to say what he was thinking.
Lily threw a smile at him over her shoulder, “You don’t know how many followed you. On the plus side, that’s what we are here for, zombie bait. We’ll be fine. Thanks for coming, Andrew, it was very sweet of you.”
Andrew blushed.
Instead of working his way into the group, Mason said, “Alright you guys hold tight, I’m going through the looking glass,” then darted into the overgrown shrubs.
Dylan and Paige tried to reach out and grab him, “Mason, no, hold on, we need a pl-…Shit!” Dylan said. “He never listens.”
They heard the ring of metal on metal then several groans. Their imaginations approached hyper-drive as their concern rose.
“WHAT was he THINKING?” Paige shouted.
From the other side, Mason’s voice wafted over, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send my team on over.”
Lily, Dylan, and Andrew released audible sighs. Paige shouted back, “Mason, you nerd, don’t do that! We were worried sick!”
Mason’s face pressed through the bushes, “That’s so sweet of you, Paige. Let me make it up to you by making out with you later.”
Paige raised an eyebrow and Dylan raised a fist. Mason laughed and ducked back to the other side. Andrew was the only one to think to ask, “How is it over there?”
“Oh, there are a few, but if you guys don’t hurry your won’t get a shot at them. You’ll have a harder time pushing through the overgrowth than the fight over here.”
Lily ducked through first. “Coming through, Mason.” She had both guns drawn and was pointing on either side of Mason. Two shots, two down. Then her eyes were drawn to the ground. Four zombies were sandwiched together with a metal pole through their heads. “What the-?”
“It’s modern day art. I think I will call it, The Mortal Sandwich.” Mason quickly bowed, “Now if you don’t mind, as was discovered earlier, my arms are getting a little bit tired.”
“God Mason, how did you…?”
“Hello, Lily? Guns, zombies, being useful. Ringing any bells in there?”
“Right, sorry,” Lily shook her head and resumed shooting.
“Wait I shouldn’t be apologizing to you - you shouldn’t have gone crashing through.” Lily tried to channel some of the annoyance she felt through her tone, but it sounded more like nagging.
Andrew’s head peeked through, “Room for a third?”
Mason clapped him on the back, “There’s always room for you Andrew. Contestant three, you’re up.” Andrew stepped forward. Mason plunged his katanas into the ground, stood back, and let his arms rest for a few seconds. He watched Lily taking out zombies to the left, pointing the guns away from the group at the door. “Well, Lily, as the shortest you would have been the most obvious choice. And it didn’t seem right to send you through.”
“Why, because I’m a girl?” Lily felt anger rising. Her adrenaline was pumping, making her emotions swing more than she liked.
Mason bent over to stretch his arms, but she could hear him laugh as he did so, “Oh please, even if I’m a gentleman, you are no lady.” Lily cracked a smile; she’d walked into that one. “As I was saying before you interrupted, a person with two guns isn’t in the best position if there were more than a couple undead strolling around just this side of the shrubs. So I skipped the debate where everyone told me you should go and proceeded with the only safe and logical action.” He shook his arms out and took a couple of practice swings.
From the other side they heard, “Coming through together, make room!”
The three moved forward, giving Dylan and Paige space. Mason was on the right side, so that the group didn’t inadvertently shoot the people at the door, Andrew was in the front, taking out zombies with every shot of Angelica. Lily was doing equally well on the left.
Paig
e brushed off the leaves, “Looks like we came late to the party. What the-?” She just noticed the zombie sandwich. Dylan did a double take, “How did those guys-”
“Storytelling later. Doors now.” Mason was about to dash off, but Paige grabbed his arm, “You’re not running off again, buster.”
“That’s right, fall in and we’ll plan the next move.” Dylan moved between Andrew and Mason, Paige held onto Mason’s arm and watched their backs for zombies following them.
“That’s great and all, but they look like they could use some help over there,” Mason pointed his katana with his free arm toward the doors, running it through another skull on the way. The creature dropped and the others glanced at the door.
They finally had a good view of the path to the door. The concrete bridge stretched from a horseshoe driveway to the building. The bridge was wide enough for five or six of them to walk down side by side, and about a half dozen stairs connected the bridge to the horseshoe driveway. Because the structure was on a slope, the stairs were fewer on the northern side. The south side of the stairs was littered with the undead, as if someone was trying to stack them up. Further up the bridge the attackers could see the rest of the group standing on something, but it was a bad angle to see what they were using to give them higher ground. Zombies were shambling down the bridge toward them.
“Andrew, what’s going on?” Lily asked, turning back to the mess around her.
“There were a lot of these things on the south side of the building. You couldn’t see it from up there. They were on the move already, and followed as soon as they caught sight of us.”
Dylan tried to take a count of survivors, but couldn’t afford to keep his attention away long enough to finish. “Was everyone ok?”
“Everyone was fine when I left, and, hopefully, no one tried to follow me,” Andrew shook his head. “See, we had tried the door and found we couldn’t get in. By then we realized that zombies were making their way toward us, so Kyle told everyone to jump on this huge circular thing close to the door. It’s made of a lot of concrete, so it was sturdy enough for all of us to hop up and out of reach of the zombies. Obviously it isn’t high enough to see from here, but it is plenty high enough to keep them all safe as long as everyone stayed there. Kyle and Ben had set us up strategically around the circumference so that nothing could climb up and no one would have to get close to the zombies that tried. Most of us were pretty ticked about the doors, so we were pulverizing the creatures that got close. Seth and I were trying to slow the progress up the stairs by creating a stack of corpses at this end of the bridge. As you can see we were making good progress because they are being channeled to the northern end of the bridge to get around their brethren. I thought it was working pretty well when I heard Lily scream.”
Dylan smiled, “That was really good thinking. Since they won’t be coming to our rescue, guess we can be their white knights.”
They heard clicking noises from Lily. “Well, that’s it. I’m out.”
“Catch,” Mason held both blades with this right hand, in his left he held a Magnum. He tossed it to her.
“Mason, you have an amazing arsenal.” Lily ran a hand over the gun in appreciation, then noticed an exterior clip. “Did you modify this?” She rounded on some zombies that were closing in.
“Careful, the kickback is unbelievable, and, yeah, I did.” Mason was back to his hypnotic swings. The team circled so that he was point, and he took them quickly toward the stairs.
Lily steadied the gun, braced herself, and squeezed the trigger. She had never felt that kind of force before, but with a single shot she had taken out three in a line. As they fell, they knocked over some of the others who were advancing. “Wow! Mason, I love this thing.”
“Glad to hear you love Felicity. She’s a real beauty.” Mason was unusually brief because he was focused on the current task. They had made their way close to the bottom of the stairs by the end of this exchange.
“Alright, we’ll go one at a time up the stairs. No point in risking a bite if one of those things isn’t dead.” Andrew was acting much more like his usual self.
Before he could step up Paige spoke up, “Hold it there, Andrew. Let me go first and you follow. I’ll take out the closest zombies while you fire at the ones further down the bridge.”
“You got it boss,” and Andrew gave her a quick salute as she jumped in front of him and headed up the stairs. She managed to take down one or two shamblers with each swing. Andrew kept angling his weapon so that he was never aiming where he could hit a survivor if a shot was off. However, with his aim it was an unnecessary precaution.
“What about you two,” Lily asked as she fired another shot. She always tried to line several up before firing because it seemed like a waste to take out just one.
“After you, Mason, Lily should be last.” Dylan gestured toward the stairs. There were noticeably fewer zombies now, but the trio could see more heading their way from almost every direction.
“You two go ahead. I’m going to torch these guys. It’ll take care of any that are still vaguely mobile and keep out other unwanted visitors. Shouldn’t take more than a sec.”
Dylan moved up the stairs and headed over to help clear out the remaining undead staggering around the bridge. With Kyle, Ben, and Phillip heading toward them from the other direction it took less than a minute to finish off the zombies trapped between the two groups. The guys met Andrew, Paige, and Dylan about half way across the bridge.
Dylan looked past them at the large group beginning to climb off of the concrete circle. “Everyone alright?”
Ben gave him a look, “Of course. That was the easiest mission we’ve been on yet. How are you guys? We heard Lily scream, then the ox took off.”
Andrew reached his hand behind his head, “Sorry, hope I didn’t mess you guys up too badly.”
Kyle waved his hand in the air, “We were fine, everything was under control. We were more worried bout you and your rotten instincts.”
Andrew laughed. “I’m not going to leave our little chickadee in trouble.”
“Hey,” Paige said.
Dylan shook his head, “She had the three of us. Are you saying we aren’t enough?”
“If she’s screaming I’m not going to stop and calculate the odds of her being at risk. Could never stand to sit and watch a woman in need.” Andrew was grinning, but it was obvious he wasn’t kidding either.
“Sorry to bring us back to reality, but where is our little Lily?” Kyle was looking toward the driveway trying to see if she was on her way.
“I’ll go get her,” Andrew said and strolled down the bridge.
“Well, you guys missed a hell of a show out there.” Paige said.
Kyle looked at her with raised eyebrows, “You thought it was a show?”
Dylan turned to look at the other end of the bridge, “We’ll tell you about it later, but oh yeah, that was a show I wouldn’t have missed for anything. You have no idea how good that guy is. I mean, we thought he was good before, but that-” he shook his head.
Paige finished for him “-that was unbelievable.”
Dylan rubbed his chin, “Still you could tell he was getting tired, so you have must have a pretty good eye. I couldn’t tell he was slowing down.”
Paige looked at him askance, “Yeah, I lied. If he hadn’t admitted it I would have believed he wasn’t tired. Don’t tell him that. I just couldn’t believe after everything he was still so energetic.”
Kyle squinted down the bridge, “Seriously, how old do you guys think he is?”
Dylan slapped him on the back and moved off toward the door, “You are more than welcome to try to get that information out of him again if you want. Frankly, I don’t really give a damn how old he is, how much of a smart ass he can be, or anything about his personal life before this. I’m just glad he’s in our group. Why are you guys so hung up on it anyway?”
“Because he won’t tell us anything,” Kyle muttered.
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nbsp; Once everyone was on the bridge, Mason kissed his blades, “I am so sorry about this ladies, please forgive me.” He then brought them down hard against the concrete creating a couple of sparks as they struck. He then made a full 360 spin, brining the swords down harder and generating a steady spray of sparks. Mason repeated the action a couple of times until the pile of corpses caught fire.
Mason wiped his blades on several immobile zombies, then stuck the blades into the fire.
“What are you doing?” Lily inquired. She had stuck around to see how he was going set the fire. She knew he didn’t have matches.
“Cleaning up my girls. Not a good idea to use water on them, but fire will do nicely.” He returned them to their sheaths, making it so you could not tell they were there. Next he pulled out the scimitar and repeated the cleaning process.
